Call it as it is
by SandraS
Summary: Friendship with Nick always came easy to Cody over the years. Warm feelings for the man's helicopters? Not so much.


Disclaimer: This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.

Author's note: Cheerful backstory invention here but as much as possible within what canon gives us.

* * *

Cody has always felt faintly bemused by most pilots habit to regard their planes or helicopters as female. Completely bizarre it gets in his book if they even name them. (And no, naming ships and considering them female is something totally different. That is _tradition_. Naming airplanes is just weird.) Most of all, though, he is usually puzzled by Nick's choice of names.

In Nam most other pilots he knows give their choppers gaudy or suggestive names if they don't simply call them baby or sweetheart. Nick calls his Ruth, Laura and Karen (and two of those are characters of Helen Howell movies but it takes Cody more than ten years to get that).

He's flying Ruth when they first meet and has to take a lot of ribbing about it at camp which, given his occasionally Italian temper, tends to end in shouting matches and fistfights. It's when Cody interferes in one of those that they end up talking to each other for the first time and discover that oh, hey, you're from around King Harbor too, what are the odds. They have an enjoyable evening reminiscing about the place but with almost four years their age difference is big enough that they have hit different hot spots at different times and they are still young enough that in any other circumstances it would have kept them from spending more time together. Well, over here circumstances are anything but normal. They get along well but don't go out of their way to seek each other out and hang around and if asked both would probably have named other guys as best buddies. Then Ruth gets reassigned to another unit several months in and so does Nick – at least until the fit Pitbull Johnson throws makes enough waves to get him back … sans Ruth.

His next chopper is Laura but she only lasts an embarrassing five weeks before she's shot down. Although. They make it almost back to camp before Nick has to get her on the ground in a tooth-rattling landing she never recovers from, so there's some debate if one was allowed to call it that. As Cody points out cheerfully, it is what you get if you name something after a character in a movie with the title "Brief Encounter". Nick punches him for it. Luckily he aims for the shoulder.

Her successor is Karen and as far as Cody knows Nick flies her until he returns stateside. Since Cody's shipped out first he can't be sure though and certainly doesn't ask.

It is dumb luck that brings them back together as MPs though they are both happy enough with it. During that time they have no chopper directly assigned to them but take whatever is available if they need one. So Nick doesn't give them names but calls them alternately _babe_ or _darling_. Except for one he insists on calling _sir_ … but Cody's not sure if he's pulling his leg with that one since he made fun of his habit just the other night.

Teamed up with each other they work closer together than ever before, bunk together, get their noses broken by guys like Mean Mick Matthews, meet and help Murray. Meet Janet in Washington. Cody is completely unprepared for how much it hurts, to find her and lose her again. He is also completely unprepared for how much Nick's silent support helps when he tries to put his life back together afterwards. In light of that they both would definitely have named the other as best friend if asked but still lose contact when they finally leave the army – in part because their time is up several months apart again.

Cody returns to King Harbor because he can't think of anywhere else to go. He's still reeling a bit from the encounter with Janet and adjusting to civilian life proves a challenge in itself. So he lets himself drift for a while. Plays volleyball at the beach with some buddies in his spare time and tries out a couple jobs – helps out as a lifeguard, assists on fishing tours for tourists or works for some water sports companies at the beach, teaching people to surf or water ski. It pays the rent of the apartments he shares with some other guys but nothing feels completely right, nothing gives him the satisfaction he is looking for. It does allow him to save up for the down payment on the Riptide when he finally finds a boat to fulfill his dream of living on one (yes, he names _her_ , its _tradition_ and still something totally different, thank you very much).

For some weeks, between working, fixing his new home up and making and discarding plans to set up his own business, he doesn't have much time for anything else. After a particularly frustrating week he finally goes to his usual volleyball spot, looking for a game to take his mind off things, and who's there engaged in a match but Nick.

Soon they are teamed up, trashing the other guys with relish, their easy connection from their MP days quickly returning. They have dinner together afterwards, laughing a lot and catching up on each other's lives. Nick has actually been in or around King Harbor too these past years since they went separate ways, flying cargo for a company at the airport or freelancing with the helicopter he now owns. Cody explains how he wants to use the Riptide to take tourists for fishing trips and harbor tours and before they know it they are in the middle of planning how they might combine helicopter rides with boat cruises.

The idea survives the next morning and on learning that Nick actually sleeps in his chopper (when he's not usurping the Skinner's couch on weekends) Cody spontaneously offers him one of the staterooms on the Riptide. Well, more or less spontaneously because splitting the slip rent will allow him to go for the speed boat he has an eye on. Space for a helipad on Pier 56 is astonishingly easy to get and so a few days later they go to the airport to transfer the Mimi. Cody rolls his eyes at the name but bites his tongue, somehow still picturing something smaller, probably a bit older, well within Nick's budget that can't be very large. And then...

And then there is this pink _monstrosity_. With a painted _mouth_. And creepy _eyes_. And Nick has to whack the instrument panels repeatedly to get the engine started which is then backfiring so badly the whole trip, it is a miracle they stay airborne!

Worst thing though, its name is not even Mimi but "The Screaming Mimi" painted boldly underneath the cockpit. By now well acquainted with his friend's movie obsession Cody doesn't even consider Nick choosing the name for any other meaning (there are surprisingly many) but he has also seen that particular piece and wasn't impressed by it. He _is_ kind of impressed how Nick spends the whole flight praising that rusting disaster as a classic and listing the many merits of the model, remarkably (or willfully) oblivious of Cody's ill-concealed horror. Cody spends the flight envisioning airsick tourists, crash landings and lawsuits. His only consolation is that hopefully nobody in their right mind will board this flying deathtrap after one look at it.

He is only partly right. As long as there are kids involved Nick is home free – girls usually love the color and boys the mouth and teeth. Most adults are another matter entirely. Meanwhile the newly purchased Ebbtide proves great for water ski rides but things are more kind of bobbing around than cruising smoothly. More importantly though, Cody comes to realize that he likes working with tourists no better as his own man than he did as an employee. It's just … he just feels that there is something missing that there should be just more … more satisfaction, more meaning, more value in what he does.

Coincidence helps him out. He takes a girl to a movie that features a private detective and suddenly Cody is hooked – not on the movie but on the idea of being a private eye himself. It's perfect, really: They can apply their experience from the MPs, it has meaning, they help people but are still independent. Talking Nick into it takes a while but in the end his friend gives in and they get their license. (The girl has long since dumped him though, apparently she didn't appreciate his sudden distraction in the theater.) Unfortunately it doesn't start very promising. But then they catch their first big case and get Murray on board (literally and figuratively) and from there on out they really get going.

Satisfying as their new job is, Cody soon discovers that he has overlooked an important part of it: Working as detectives not only means they are shot at a lot more than he expected but that taking Mimi for transport becomes kind of a regular thing. Which means he is required to set foot in that flying deathtrap a _lot_. Which means further that they are frequently shot at _in the Mimi_. As if simply flying in the old chopper wasn't terrifying enough.

True, with all Murray's computer stuff and especially when they have to lug around the Roboz the big cargo bay is an advantage – but come on! Cody can't even count any more how many times Mimi refuses to start up at the most inconvenient of times. Or has to go down because the engine overheats. Or a piston breaks. Not to mention the old chopper's knack for doing it with impeccable timing to drop them in the worst _possible_ places, like in the backyards of mob bosses and crime lords. And don't get him started on the fact that any modern helicopter is able to run circles around them while Nick's so-called classic is almost vibrating apart whenever asked for some reasonable speed. But does anybody listen to Cody's completely rational and well-formulated complains? No!

On top of that expenses of the piece of junk go through the roof and unfortunately it is only fair they all pitch in to cover them, same as they do with the Riptide and Murray's computer equipment. But does that make the ancient thing any more reliable? Again: No! Oh, sometimes Cody really, really hates that pink monstrosity, he really does...

Until Boz meets Baxter Bernard and Cody gets a taste of what Nick considers flying for fun with a state-of-the-art, high-power helicopter and yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh.

Let's just say after that episode he has a whole new appreciation of Mimi's matronly bulk and age-related deficiencies. Anything as long as it curbs Nick's more disturbing tendencies in the cockpit. Nevertheless, he might not hate the old chopper any more but he can't love it – especially when once again he's the one required to jump out of it on, say, moving trucks or other such stunts. Besides, the expense of maintenance doesn't get any less and continues to eat up their profit and as he sees it "reliable" will just never be one of it's prominent features.

Then Mimi goes down in Mexico but doesn't crash and burn despite being shot out of the sky, allowing Nick to walk away from that particular disaster with a broken heart over Renee but intact bones. There are few things Cody has ever been more grateful for.

He still curses the old chopper silently (or not so silently) whenever he's expected to jump out in full flight _again_. But he also kind of finds himself hoping Mimi'll stay around a lot longer.

And if he gives her a secret pat every now and again that's strictly between her and him.


End file.
